The Very Edge of Everything - TV Tropes

Still they went South till they passed below the South and came to the Rim of the Worlds.
There there is neither South nor East nor West, but only North and Beyond; there is only North of it where lie the Worlds, and Beyond it where lies the Silence, and the Rim is a mass of rocks that were never used by the gods when They made the Worlds, and on it sat Trogool.

• Jan Tenner: At the edge of the universe of the Dark Empire, an Alternate Universe with its own set of laws of physics, rages a continuous thunderstorm. Beyond it lies the Void, a semi-sentient mass of pure dark magic with the singular desire to devour all of existence. As the Void advances, so does the thunderstorm signaling to the inhabitants of the Dark Empire that their universe is getting smaller and smaller.

• The DCU: At the edge of the multiverse is the Source Wall, which completely surrounds it and separates it from the Source, aka heaven. It's covered in what looks like statues, but those are people; anyone who tries to breach the Wall and fails becomes a part of it forever.
  • In the final issue of the original run of Lucifer, Samael has decided to leave all of Creation behind and, after one last talk with his Creator, journey into the endless white void beyond everything.
• Marvel Comics:
  • In one issue of the Genre Anthology Amazing Fantasy (best known for its final issue introducing Spider-Man), a terminally ill astronaut takes a faster-than-light rocket to the edge of the universe to document what he sees before he dies. He winds up returning to Earth regressed to infancy, with a scientist concluding that whatever lives there gave him a second chance at life.
  • In a two-part 2000 Cable storyline, Cable goes to find his half-sister Rachel Summers/Askani in the far future. The very, very, far future. When he ends up there, he meets his host, a man named Gaunt, who reveals he was banished to that wasteland. Such wasteland is, in Gaunt's words, a version of Earth from a distant point in the many timelines, at the end of time.

  Gaunt: "But, in the end, I lost. ... I was exiled to the end of time, to the borderline of reality. Banished to this ancient world, to live alone forever. This planet is the penultimate Earth. All of the timelines that did not end with the destruction of Terra by some terrible experiment of war have reached this same point. There are no multiple futures, no alternate timelines this far into the future. This is all that is left of humanity. This is the borderline, the end of all realities on Earth. An uninhabited world, without life. A wasteland with no future."

  • When it was first introduced in Nova (2007), Knowhere was found at the Rip, the very edge of the universe, which looks like a giant orange storm in space. Typically, the owners of Knowhere's eyes closed (because it's a decapitated Celestial head) because the sight tends to be a bit... unnerving. The Luminals came to Knowhere to throw their arch-nemesis into the Rip, since they'd tried literally everything else and it's never stuck.
  • Several works by Al Ewing mention the "Far Shore", the very edge of the multiverse, beyond which is an endless blank void. It's pretty much impossible for anything human to survive out there, but there are hints there's something even further out.
• Sins of Sinister: Storm uses her supercharged powers and some magic to tear open a wormhole that sends the Brotherhood and the Moira Engine to the edge of the universe.

• The Dresden Files: At the edge of the universe are the Outer Gates, where a Forever War is fought between the Outsiders trying to get into the universe, and the Winter Court of the Fae who are trying to keep them out. The Gates can only be opened from inside by a mortal, an act which is strictly forbidden by the Seventh Law of Magic laid down by the White Council.
• Foundation Series: The Foundation was established on the planet Terminus, which is appropriately named for its location at the edge of the Galaxy. From there, it would form the seed of the Second Galactic Empire after the current one fell.
• Lord Dunsany:
  • The Gods of Pegāna: When Yadin sought to know they why and wherefore of the gods, three birds that may have been sent by the god Hoodrazai, who carried him south until they passed every star and every world, and came at last to the Rim of the Worlds, where there is only a rim of stone never used in the making of the universe and then nothing of any sort. There sits Trogool, the thing that is neither god nor beast, who keeps the book that records all of history.
  • "The Injudicious Prayers of Pombo the Idolator": In his search for a god who will answer his prayers after he has offended all the others, Pombo is directed to head to the edge of the world, to "the village of World's End, at the furthest end of Last Street", where he will find a well that hides a set of stairs that slope down to and past the very edge of the world, where there is a Lonely House home to nothing human, and a strange beast that is high priest to the god of flowers, and finally, on the very brim of the gloaming void where the world spins, a strange idol that will answer his prayers.
• IT: During the Ritual of Chud, a person stands before It, and while their body remains in one physical location, their psyche is hurled out into the cosmos to confront It's true form, the Deadlights, which are a cluster of orange light existing outside the edge of the universe. If a person can defeat It before reaching the Deadlights, they cause harm to Its physical form on Earth, but should a person reach the Deadlights their very psyche will be utterly destroyed.
• Journey to the West: When Sun Wukong starts trashing heaven after escaping his execution, the Jade Emperor calls upon the Buddha for help as a last resort. Buddha makes a simple wager with the Monkey King: if Wukong can jump out of Buddha's hand, then Buddha will support his ascension to the throne of heaven. Wukong eagerly accepts, flying out of Buddha's hand as hard as he can and landing at the edge of the universe, where the five Pillars of Creation hold up the sky. Wukong vandalizes one of the pillars and jumps all the way back to the Jade Palace, bragging about his accomplishment. But Buddha simply opens up his palm, revealing a tiny mark on one of his fingers that perfectly matches the graffiti that Wukong had left on the Pillar. Wukong had never left the Buddha's hand, for the entire universe is in it.
• Star Wars Legends: Some Universe Compendiums mention a "circumferential hyperspace barrier" of spatial anomalies around the galaxy, preventing outbound Faster-Than-Light Travel. Extragalactic life is a matter of speculation like extraterrestrial life is on Earth, so the galaxy is caught with its collective pants down in The New Jedi Order when a vast invasion force arrives from the void beyond.

• Doctor Who: In "Wild Blue Yonder", the Doctor and Donna visit the edge of the universe, just beyond which dwells the Not-Things. After stalling them with the superstition that malevolent beings cannot cross a line of salt without first counting every grain, the Doctor actively ponders whether there would be consequences for invoking superstitions at the edge of the universe, which later episodes confirm by revealing that it introduced more fantasy elements into the universe.
• Stargate Universe: The ship's destination is a mysterious spot at the edge of the universe, which may contain clues about the origin of the universe.
• Star Trek: The Galactic Barrier surrounds the Milky Way Galaxy, blocking it from the rest of the known universe. Crossing it can damage ships and even transform humans to grant them god-like power.

• The Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh travels to the earthly paradise at the eastern edge of the world, and then sails even further east across the Ocean of Death until he reaches the island home of Utnapishtim, the only man to have been granted immortality by the gods, to ask him to share the secret of his gift.

• Exalted: Creation is a Flat World bounded by four Elemental Poles: Air to the north, Water to the west, Fire to the south, and Wood to the east, becoming more and more saturated with elemental power near the Pole. Past the Poles is the formless World of Chaos of the Wyld. (Inversely, the Pole of Earth is the Axis Mundi.)
• Mage: The Awakening: Astral Space ends at the shore of the ocean Oroboros, marking the divide between the universe and the non-existence of the Abyss. Anything that enters the ocean ceases to be; anything that comes out is an Abyssal intruder trying to become real.
• Magic: The Gathering: At the edge of the multiverse is the plane of Equilor, said to be the oldest of all planes. In the novel Planeswalker, Urza briefly visits it to learn about the origins of the Phyrexians, and it takes him 100 years to get to it from the general region of Dominaria, which at the time was the Nexus plane at the center of the multiverse. It's described as being very worn down, every edge smoothed by millennia of erosion, with a sense of being "finished". The inhabitants are powerful enough to watch over the multiverse and bar planeswalkers from entering their world, but they've outgrown any desire for greatness and are satisfied with living simple lives.
  • The Edge of Eternities set likewise takes place at another region at the edge of the multiverse, bordering the Blind Eternities.
• Nobilis: The Weirding Wall is a barrier of blue fire at the edge of Creation. The Lands Beyond the Wall are, ontologically, not real — which hasn't stopped them from causing problems.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The Mortal Realms are immense but spatially finite flat worlds contained within spaces called "Realmspheres". As one heads away from their geographic centers, they become increasingly charged with magic until they reach the Perimeter Inimical, the very edge of the Realmsphere, where all matter breaks down into pure magical energy, and not even deities can survive.

• Destiny 2: Emperor Calus claims to have voyaged to the very end of the universe after being deposed and exiled, which he perceived as an absolute nothingness devoid of time, space, matter, and meaning — and within the nothingness, the Black Fleet. Calus had a vision of the Black Fleet spreading this nothingness to consume the rest of the universe and devoted himself to being its herald, proclaiming that the end of all things was nigh and that everyone should spend the time they had left enjoying their lives to the fullest.
• Final Fantasy XIV: In the Endwalker expansion, the last zone is Ultima Thule, which is said to be located at the edge of the universe. This is where Meteion built her nest and broadcast her song of destruction across the universe, and where she gathers as much aether as she can hoard to prevent any of it from forming new life.
• Futurama: Parodied. Adoy, the Professor's mentor and former graduate advisor, lives on the planet Bogad in the furthest corner of the universe. Literally — the planet itself lies directly adjacent to a giant angle marking the furthest extent of existence.
• Grim Fandango: In Year 3, Manny and Glottis discover Domino has a coral mine at the edge of the Land of the Dead where souls who fall into the ocean become slaves.
• Hexen II: The manual states that the universe is surrounded by a crystal barrier, beyond which there is a darkness inhabited by demons.
• Honkai Impact 3rd: The last arc of Part 1.5 is revealed to have taken place in a distant planet at the edge of the Solar System (no, it's not Pluto). This also brings part of the Honkai: Star Rail lore: The "worlds" in the universe are separated by an "imaginary barrier" that can only be crossed through special means, and for HI3rd's world in particular, this barrier lies not far from said distant planet.
• Kirby Star Allies: At least according to the map, the last planet "Jambandra Base" and its satellite "The Divine Terminus" is located at the edge of the universe.
• Puyo Puyo:
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris: Near the end of the game the group travels to the Edge of Spacetime, which is so far out that it does not belong to any dimension. When they arrive they meet Ex, the Keeper of Dimensions and the one responsible for the worlds of Puyo Puyo and Tetris colliding.
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris 2: This game introduces the Edge of Two Worlds, which exists at the furthest ends of the Puyo Puyo and Tetris dimensions and is watched over by Marle and Squares.
• Space Engine: The map coordinates extend 50 billion light years^note  outwards from the Sun on any axis. Past that boundary, though, nothing else is rendered aside from a few stragglers just barely outside. You're able to go beyond those coordinates — and given the speeds needed to even reach it, you probably will by accident — but all you'll find is a void of infinite darkness, which extends so far that all the universe's light will quickly grow too dim for you to be able to find your way back.

• SCP Foundation: SCP-5005 "Lamplight" is a small area of stable reality in the Void Between the Worlds located 3449 whalons from the center of the multiverse - and 89 whalons beyond the limit of where matter is supposed to be able to exist. It's lit by a biomechanical lantern that seems to keep anything within its light from dissolving into nothingness and is home to the small settlement of Lamplight. The article calls it the most remote matter in existence.

• Captain Star and his crew are stuck on some uninhabited planet at "the ragged edge of the universe", awaiting further orders throughout the series. One episode had a cat come from beyond... at the end, it goes back into a live-action house.
• Futurama:
  • "I Dated a Robot": Parodied when the Planet Express crew travels to the edge of the Universe. It is apparently a well-worn path by the 31st century, as the border of existence has a brick wall where tourists can use a telescope to look at the next universe over across a gaping white void.
  • "The Route of All Evil": Parodied again. As a prank, Cubert and Dwight impersonate Professor Farnsworth and tell the crew to make a delivery to Dogdoo 8, a planet on the edge of the universe. Several wasted days of travelling later, the furious crew return and reveal that there's no such planet as Dogdoo 8 — "the universe ends right after Dogdoo 7".
• Star Trek: The Animated Series: "Beyond the Farthest Star" has the Enterprise explore a dead star at the fringe of the Milky Way. There, they discover a spacecraft that's been abandoned and derelict for millions of years, yet still has a functioning Apocalyptic Log.

• Averted in the case of the Universe for models of finite ones, in which if someone kept going on would simply loop back to the starting point of his/her/it/? journey^note  without finding an end of the Universe as such (in other words, the Universe is finite but lacks any edge), just as happens in Earth. In some models, one would find the same galaxies again and again instead, even if because of how such objects changed through time that would be difficult to notice for the traveller. It's unknown if the Universe is finite or infinite but available data suggests if the former was true it would be much larger than the part that we can see.
• The edge of the observable Universe is at 46.7 billion light years away. In all likelihood, it's not an actual edge of the Universe beyond which there's just empty space and not galaxies but simply a limit that marks the farthest objects whose light has been able to reach us, meaning each point of the 'verse would have its own visible Universe, and beyond it there're more (probably much more, if not even infinite) clusters and superclusters of galaxies as in our corner of space. As our knowledge has improved, such edge has steadily moved outward with the most dramatic jump being when in the '20s of the past century it was discovered many objects that were believed to be nebulae were actually galaxies as ours very far away.